Okay so i think i need help

oKay, so as you may have heard me say before, i'm moving into a new house and decided to upgrade from a 55g tank to a 92g corner tank....
Anyway, i asked a friend of mine who claims to be an expert on how to go about doing this...
What he told me to do first was to use all new live sand. he said place that in the tank, take a about 15 gallons of water from the old tank and put it in the new set up, along with 2 pieces of LR. The rest of the water will be all new..
So i've done that and i've been testing daily and my tank has yet to cycle at all, the ph,nitrate and nitrite are all at 0 and the ammonia is at .5.
Even with the two pieces of LR in there, I added a raw shrimp, hoping that if it was going to cycle, it would kickstart it. Nothing so far.
My question is, what do i do next? Do i wait for some sort of cycle? Or since i added my water and LR is this situation different? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
If it matters, i have a cascade 1000 canister filter that came with the tank running and a small powerhead, my skimmer is still running on the old tank thats waiting to be transferred over.
 

meowzer

Moderator
I am no expert on this, but if you used all your own stuff including the rock....why would you have any die-off or ammonia???
 
Well thats sort of what i'm asking, but the majority of the water is new, so i'm not sure...
I refuse to put any fish/inverts in until I'm 100% its cycled and good to go
 

meowzer

Moderator
How long have you had the water in it? New saltwater does not create a "cycle" and you used New sand too right? How much OLD sw did you use...SORRY I really could not understand what you wrote...
 
I used 15 gallons of my old water.
and yes, i used completely new sand and a new filter.
I did this all last sunday afternoon.
 
Ahh, well then hopefully i start seeing the cycle soon.
Now, will there be an issue when i add in the rest of my live rock??
I also believe i need more live rock being that i've moved to a much bigger tank, can that cause another cycle?
 

meowzer

Moderator
I would add al lthe rock now....especially if you are going to get new rock....will it be fully cured?
 
Yes, I plan on buying all cured rock and also curing it myself.
Should I also cure the rock coming from my existing tank? (I originally cured it many years ago when I added it to that tank)
Sorry about all the questions, I've never done this before and I really appreciate the help!
 

meowzer

Moderator
Your existing rock is in a tank right? SO NO, if you transfer directly over it does not need anything done to it
If you buy ALL cured rock, and it is not left out of water, you should not have to do much to that either.....I'd put it in a rubbermaid for a day or 2 with fresh SW, a powerhead and a heater.....test the water and if it is good after a day or 2 put the rock in
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
If you would have used your old filter and kept it wet and heated during the move you likley could have used that to reduce the chance of having to cycle at all.
Your water doesnt have much bacteria in it at all so the stuff that breaks down ammonia for you is housed in your mechanical filtration and your LR. But jsut a few pounds of LR most likley won't be even close to enough to prevent a cycle.
 
Yea, i wanted to use my old filter, would've been much easier but i needed to keep it on the "old" tank with the fish still in there.
Okay, i'm actually having another issue....
I set the new tank up last Sunday using live sand, it was real cloudy afterwards, which i expected. The problem is, it's still pretty damn cloudy. For 92 gallons is that normal?
Last two tanks i set up it was cloudy for maybe 3 days tops if that...
 
I cleaned the filter, there was some sand it in, I'm hoping that helps clear it up. If not, I guess my only other option is a massive water change?
 
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